1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document managing system, a document managing method, and a computer program and, more particularly, is suitable for use in formation of a shortcut of a document.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a file system, there is a function called “shortcut”. According to the shortcut, an access to a file or a directory on the file system is not directly performed to a substance of the file or directory but is performed through an indirect file. Such a file as to indirectly provide the access to the file is called a shortcut file. As actual examples of the shortcut in the file system, “Shortcut” in Windows (registered trademark) of Microsoft Corporation, “Symbolic-link” in UNIX (registered trademark) of AT & T Corporation, and the like can be mentioned. Each of those shortcut functions is often called by a name peculiar to an operating system (OS) for controlling the file system.
In the file system, there is a function which is what is called “trash box”. It is a special directory for holding the deleted unnecessary files and directories and enables them to be reconstructed by an instruction of the user.
In recent years, functions equivalent to the shortcut and the trash box are also provided by a document managing system which uses a database as a backend engine. The file and the directory in the file system correspond to a document and a folder in the document managing system, respectively. When the file in the file system is moved to another directory or is moved to the trash box due to a deletion, the shortcut which has been set for an original path of such a file cannot be used. This is because since the substance of the file has been moved, path information which is stored into the shortcut file does not indicate a proper existing location of the substance of the file.
A technique in the related art to solve such a problem has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H08-161210. According to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H08-161210, when the position of the substance of the file as a link destination of the shortcut file is changed, a file called “temporary file” describing the position of a movement destination is formed by the same file name as that of the file on the link destination. When the temporary file is accessed from the shortcut file, the shortcut is notified of the position of the substance of the file after the movement, and the path information held in the shortcut file is changed to new path information.
However, according to the shortcut in the document managing system, there is a case where such a related art does not become a proper solving device. In the document managing system, the document is managed by a document management ID corresponding to an entry of the database. Therefore, in the shortcut in the document managing system, information of the document management ID is held instead of the path information of the shortcut in the file system. Since the document is accessed from the shortcut by the document management ID, even if the document is moved to the trash box or the like, the document after the movement can be accessed from the shortcut. Therefore, in such a case, the foregoing related art is unnecessary.
However, even in the document managing system, there is a case where the file called “temporary file” which is used in the foregoing related art is necessary. That is, it is necessary when the documents are exchanged. There is a case where after the document was temporarily deleted, the user wants to exchange the documents. If the shortcut of the document has already been formed prior to exchanging, the deleted document becomes an access destination of the shortcut. Even if the document is newly registered by the same document name after the document was deleted, the access destination of the shortcut does not become the document. Such a result is undesirable to the user who performed the exchange.
For example, in a work flow such as an approval request of the document, after the document was registered, a shortcut is formed and attached to E-mail, and the E-mail for the approval request is transmitted to the approver. In this case, the document shown by the shortcut attached to the E-mail is a document as a target of the approval request. There is a case where after the E-mail was transmitted, since the registered document is a wrong document, the requester wants to exchange the document. In this instance, there is a case where the user temporarily deletes the document and exchanges the document. In the case where he has executed such an exchanging operation that after the document was deleted, a new document is registered, in the related art, it is necessary to form again a shortcut for the document obtained after the exchange and transmit E-mail for the approval request again to the approver. This is because the document management ID of the document before the exchange and the document management ID of the document obtained after the exchange differ. That is, since the shortcut which has been attached to the E-mail and transmitted before holds the document management ID of the document before the exchange, unless the shortcut for the document obtained after the exchange is formed again and the E-mail for the approval request is transmitted again, the approver cannot open the document obtained after the exchange.
At the time of the document exchange as mentioned above, a check-in/check-out function of the document of the document managing system can be also used. In the case of using such a function, since the document management ID is not changed, there is no need to change the shortcut. However, the check-in/check-out function is generally a function which intends to update the same type of document and is not suitable to such a case that the document type is changed and the document is exchanged.